The Spread: Kyra Maxims
by Jade Celandine
Summary: Lord of the Rings Universe crossover: Former spy and saboteur Kyra lives peacefully in the Blue Mountains. No more war. No more trouble. Then a familiarly-bearded wizard walks up to her neighbour and says that there was a dead dragon's hoard up for grabs. What girl could resist that? Rated T for mild violence and semi-prolific coarse language during said violence.
1. A New Home

_**AN: So this is my first multi-chapter extension, and I hope that this will catch your interest enough as something applicable. Remember darlings, constructive reviews are fuel!**_

 _ **Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OCs and the totally AU plot I'm working with on here. If I did, more than a few things would be changed – and in no way will anything have run as long as it did! Plus, I'd be rich, but who cares?**_

 _ **This is Jade Celandine, I hope you enjoy!**_

* * *

 _ **Chapter 1: A New Home**_

 **I never thought that the life I had led for the past fifteen years would lead to this. To be honest, which I rarely am in my line of work, I had expected my death in this world to be something along the lines of getting caught doing something that my superiors might or might not necessarily be supposed to know about and getting 'taken care of', put out of the way; or maybe finally reaching the pinnacle of my skill and usefulness, and being executed for knowing too much. For someone like me, that is the highest possible complement.**

 **But I wasn't going to die in this world now, wasn't I? **

**Going 'elsewhere' to save myself from what amounts to getting burned from the inside out from absorbing too much magic. Ha! Those purebred fanatics in their graves would be spinning from the irony.**

 **Nonetheless, this little jaunt ought to be good for me; I can finally indulge my Ravenclaw tendency of allowing curiosity free reign over all natural reactions. Who knows, maybe I can even have fun.**

 **(Chuckles) More than I already had, of course.**

* * *

Kyra Maxims had been an infiltrator and saboteur working for the DA when the war ended, not that it had meant that her job was done in any way with its conclusion.

It simply meant that her work would be a little less invaluable to those who needed her services than it used to when everyone and her mother was at stake on the accuracy of her intelligence. But the operation became that bit more shadowy, that bit more ruthless, and the witch had relished in the way that every action made in the name of a purpose she believed in made her blood flow hot and eager.

However it also meant that the iron-clad alliances that once held fast through blood and enemy spell-fire bent and then broke under the relentless tides of politics and greed. The direct politician who you knew was doing his job was replaced with a more conventional lip-servicing statesman, and conventional lawmakers meant conventional laws.

Slowly, over the next decade, the spy found herself and her masters being effectively hamstrung, their concerns and opinions brushed aside as over-paranoid and irrelevant. They were the first who saw what the new era had birthed, and they were the first to accept that all that they and their compatriots had lived and died for was worthless in the face of it.

The witch was among the first batch of volunteers to test the ritual designed to take them away from their homeworld; she really had nothing to lose anymore.

And of course, thanks to excessive OCD on the part of the researchers, she lands in one piece. Praise the nature spirits for that.

Five years after her emergence from the ritually-powered wormhole, Kyra had settled down into an isolated valley and built herself a nice hut surrounded by gardens and the forest trees.

Living the life of a hermit was more therapeutic for the former spy than she had anticipated. Being free to indulge her fantasies for a garden Professor Sprout would have been proud of, to work and rework her magic in ways she had only once contemplated idly while casing a joint or trailing a target. However, there was a certain uneasiness that still came over her at times as a creature used to having her talents and loyalties placed firmly under the care of a master. War and its close companions had kept her busy and challenged, and her instincts sometimes betrayed her in a flash of light or a gust of scented wind.

But that was far from her mind as she tended to her butterfly garden and the insects she had specifically cultivated and crossbred for the care of the magical specimens, absorbed and peaceful in her work. Here it was no trouble for her fellows and few living friends to recognize why she had been initially put in Hufflepuff, to see compassion and tenderness carefully and usually hidden behind a calm and forbidding exterior.

Whoever said that intimidation was a tactic suited for either Gryffindor or Slytherin had clearly never met Kyra Maxims.

* * *

 **|0o00o0|**

Two years after her initial settlement on the mountainside farm, the witch was growing increasingly distressed over the events occurring overnight in her gardens.

Well, distressed seemed a bit much. More like annoyed, really.

A great lugging bear seemed to have moved in overnight, stepping on her flowers and terrifying almost whole butterfly colonies away while trying to get at – presumably – her beehives which were properly spelled against such an invasion. Unfortunately, it seemed that her mild anti-wildlife wards had no effect on a creature of the hypothetical bear's presumed size, and all her other spells to mitigate the problem had done nothing to solve the situation.

Well, desperate times called for desperate measures.

And Kyra was nothing if not overly familiar with desperate measures.

One can imagine the amount of bejeezus shocked out of one Beorn of the Carrock's skin when he returned to his bear-nightly investigations on this new farm a week later only to be confronted by the surprisingly impressive sight of a polar bear standing her full 10 feet upright, placed in such a way as to protect the fragile hives of honey that Kyra had spent weeks cultivating. Hot or not under her fur, she wasn't about to let some oversized ursine fool around in her property to satisfy his appetites!

Beorn, of course, wasn't the type to take such a challenge lying down. He too stood to his full height – the witch inwardly quailed but kept up her defensive snarl – and looked down at the white bear from the suitably intimidating fourteen feet of difference between his head and hers. Kyra responded by smoothing out her features, positioning her paws in front of her like a meerkat and stubbornly keeping herself upright. Her hind legs were complaining and on the verge of beginning an insurrection.

The larger, older shape-shifter was suitably impressed by the display, and guessing that the gleam of intelligence in her dark eyes was all too similar to his own, he changed his skin back and grinned with excessive displaying of teeth. Then, unashamed of his nakedness, he walked away to his own home.

The animagus dropped to all fours with her own shock. And that had been that.

* * *

 **|0o00o0|**

He and Kyra were thenceforth as amicable as two distant neighbours could be, having reached the sort of tacit understanding that comes between people who were alone and didn't like it despite the fact that it was completely in their natures. As the more well-known of the two, Beorn kept her abreast of any outside knowledge while the witch in turn kept his gardens from turning into a frightful mess while he was off in either shape. Truly, the horses and dogs could have taken care of everything on their own, but it gave Kyra a chance to admire the much larger and fluffier bees pollinating his clearings.

Sometimes one or the other would invite the neighbour to tea or some such thing. Being British, Kyra never passed up the chance and was often well-received with pastries and pies. Today she decided that it was her turn to invite the gigantic shape-shifter to take tea in her gardens (unfortunately her house was only sized to fit a five-foot-something witch), and brought some honey jars to sweeten the idea.

Wolves in those parts knew better than to accost the witch for her burden on the way to Beorn's house several miles away; more than a few had experienced the humiliation of having fur that turned all the colors of the spectrum every five minutes. Some, on her more vindictive days, were even turned neon pink! And that wasn't getting into the wolves she had actually killed before she got bored and started slinging hair-dye spells every once in a while. There was a time when the witch had visited the bear-shifter in sky-blue hair and blood-spattered robes and he had guffawed uproariously...

Meeting one of her neighbour's beloved ponies as she clambered up the slope, Kyra graciously accepted the offer of being carried the rest of the way as was her wont. She might not have been able to understand them as deeply or as thoroughly as the shape-shifter did, but she knew how oddly clever these animals were and treated them accordingly. An apple she kept in her basket for just such offers of service was given in thanks as the witch walked up to the door and knocked loudly.

"Kyra!" Said young(er) woman was promptly gathered in the gigantic man's arms and swung bodily around with a booming laugh. Kyra laughed with this more feral version of Hagrid even as she held her basket up for him to smell the tantalizingly fresh contents. "Well met, well met," the shape-shifter continued. "What brings you here? Come in!"

"I have come to extend a cordial invitation to take tea with me sometime this week in the gardens. I am afraid my home is much too small to accommodate guests, but the outdoors are quite wonderful this time of year, if I do say so myself," she announced.

"I'll not gainsay that," Beorn grinned. "Very well. Tea at a witch's house for high noon. I shall return with half the jars... and the toast to go with it, yes?"

"I keep telling you I am a _hedge_ witch, Beorn Bearskin," the former spy countered humorously. It was an old argument. "But here. Honey fresh from my hives near the herb garden."

"Ah, a wondrous concoction, Lady Kyra. Truly wondrous indeed." He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively while the tiny woman before his doorstep giggled sweetly. They said their goodbyes, trading yet more barbs and inside jokes as Kyra waved goodbye and went on back home. She did not Apparate, not only because she disliked the sensation, but because she had not travelled the mountains enough to do so. Besides, a half-decade of working only the smallest of magics to avoid detection by the greater powers of this world put her severely out of practice.

It also allowed her to meet some fourteen little people led by one grey big person running for Beorn's home like the wargs were after them.

Well. There _were_ actual wargs after them. And orcs, too.

"Oh dear," the hedgewitch muttered, then reluctantly pulled out her wand and began casting misdirection spells on the pursuing party, adding a couple meant to completely screw over the wolf-like things' sense of smell or balance. Not enough to fall over, of course, that would cause an inexplicable commotion; just a teeny bit of reverse-controller-syndrome she had once experienced as a videogamer. She heard a certain bear howling in the night (and who knew bears could _actually_ do that?), and promptly hightailed it back home.

Her direct involvement in the quest to the Lonely Mountain ended there.

* * *

 **|0o00o0|**

Some months later and she was beginning to become continuously more and more disquieted by the news coming in through Beorn and his friend Radagast, a _wizard_ as he was supposed to be. The former spy supposed that you couldn't really argue the proper definition of the word, seeing as she was the only one who would see the difference as she saw it.

The bear-shifter had confessed to an unusual emptying of the wargs on the mountain and the orc tribes that traditionally tamed and rode them during one of their monthly-weekly-anytime-really visitations and tea. His night-time wanderings had yielded fewer and fewer of the reprehensible things to properly tear to pieces and assuage his directionless anger, making his temper a bit more testy each time. The witch tried her best to relieve it with reports she refused to clarify of some pocket or other in the mountain territory he claimed as his, but the truth was that she too was getting steadily uneasy and irritated in general and around him in particular.

Kyra was thus unaccountably pleased when Gandalf the Grey, a wizard friend who had stopped over at one point apparently ("For a supposedly isolated bear-shifter, Beorn, you seem to have quite a few wizard friends," she teased him later) on the way to some mountain or other, returned to enlist the man-bear's help with an orc army apparently massing at the Lonely Mountain, wherever it was. Having been caught in the discussion as it was in the middle of tea, the hedgewitch promptly became part of it.

By decisively declaring, "He's going."

Somewhat bemused, the elderly wizard asked, "And you might be, young miss?"

"Kyra Maxims, Mr. Gandalf, at your service," she replied with a flourish and a seated bow. "I am a hedgewitch, and Beorn Bearskin's nearest neighbour around these parts. You are still going, Beorn," the witch added.

"Why should I concern myself over the affairs of Men, Dwarves, or Hobbits?" the overlarge man insisted on questioning, tugging at his impressive beard as he humoured the little witch. The thing was, he never quite got to test himself against the full strength of her stubbornness, and was going to have a grand old time trying to get his way. Trying, because of course no one had ever been able to out-stubborn a Hufflepuff.

"Because you have been irritable, grumpy, and all around acting like you've never quite gotten yourself awake in the morning and must constantly fight the urge to go back to bed." Kyra said all these with the tart tone she had begun to take up with him recently, adjusting her skirts so that her feet were tucked under her bottom as she completely disregarded conventional manners to reach over Beorn's massive table. "Honestly, it's been slowly driving me a little mad and if seeing you gone for a few weeks will stop that from happening anymore, I'll take it." With a crow of victory, the shape-shifter's neighbour snagged some honey for the toast she was hoarding aggressively from everyone bar the butterflies and Beorn himself. It was amusing to the other two men to see her comically struggling with a goat over the state of her cheese slices, which were thick enough to appeal to them both. Such epic sagas made for lively winter entertainment.

"So what of it?" Gandalf continued once the segment ended, "Will you be willing to lend your strength, if only for the moment? I promise you, the hordes will soothe whatever irritation Mistress Kyra seems to detect in you."

Determined to get her way, Kyra attempted to stare him down, inadvertently resembling a squirrel with her mouth full to the cheeks with honeyed bread. Her eyes were trying to blast the subliminal message, 'DO IT,' that made her look even worse despite the obvious 'or else' that every woman instinctively masters at the moment she needs to intimidate a man to her point of view.

"And what of you, sow? If I've been irritable, so have you," he riposted, drawing the Grey Wizard's attention away from him for a bit as the hedgewitch scowled blackly.

"I was not aware of there being another shape-shifter so close to the Carrock." Peering at the diminutive woman with curiosity and not a little suspicion, the wizard could not find anything that registered against his esoteric senses as amiss. It was probably a bit distressing to the old man, given that the Maiar were used to being capable of sensing what lay in the shadows of the world with some degree of impunity if not some accuracy.

"Of course not," she quipped. "Unlike either of you, some of us prefer a less exciting day-to-day life. Bear-skinned might I be myself, but I don't get troubled by intermittent Orc-raids, now do I?" The young woman gave the men a bland close-lipped smile and sipped her rosehip tea with all the poshness of an innate Brit.

"Now that bit of magic I will find myself interested in knowing, young lady." Gandalf leaned forward, scholastic interest written now in his features.

"Who said it was _my_ magic, Mr. Greybeard? Some relations between supernaturally-inclined individuals are to be expected when they get along well enough," was the arch reply. "Besides, the fact I have an alternative shape does not necessarily mean that my relatives get one. It's a matter of aptitude, this sort of thing is."

"Well, that aptitude would certainly be of use to some friends of mine out east." The old wizard stroked his impressive beard coyly, reminding her of a somewhat spryer and more involved Dumbledore. Kyra hadn't liked him much. "More specifically, at Erebor."

"I was sitting here for that part, Mr. Greybeard," she informed him, then sighed and switched her eyes to her grinning shapeshifter neighbor. "Just let me grab some things and we'll be off."

It was just as well that she never entirely unpacked her compartmentalized, shrinkable witch's trunk.

* * *

 _ **A.N: Please, reviews are love! Just let me know what you think and I might find more time than expected to motivate myself into continuing this.**_


	2. Back to War

_**A.N: Umm, thanks for the encouragement, I really like what I've been doing. Don't be surprised at how long the subsequent chapters will take. This could end up being very short or so long that it could constitute an epic by itself.**_

 _ **Most of this will have extensive changes to Hobbit and thus Lord of the Rings canon. However, given that there is canonically a sixty-year gap between the stories, my character is likely unable to live long enough to see it. Or will she?**_

 _ **Review please, as they mean love and constructive criticism.**_

 _ **Jade Celandine, out!**_

* * *

 _ **Chapter 2: Back to War**_

The Battle of the Five Armies was unlike any experience of war the witch had ever seen. Strictly magical battles involved a certain distance between combatants – long- and mid-range was a given wizard's specialty as that was where their thrown spells had the most effectiveness. Dueling protocols always had combatants at a minimum of twenty feet away from each other, and even during the most heated of battles a werewolf was guaranteed a kill if he could get within fifteen of a wizard.

The orc, dwarrow, and elven armies, however, only had the options of horrifically long-range, with bow and arrow or ballistae, and short-range, with swords and axes slugging it out. War was dirtier than Kyra remembered.

Both she and Beorn had, via giant eagle, quite literally dropped in on the orc army in bear form, using their claws, teeth, and their devastating bulk to at times mow down the flowing army of flesh around them. Unlike the monstrosity of a black bear who had the ability to shrug off nothing less than sixteen clubs, swords, and arrows in a row, the former spy's polar bear sported the armor specifically crafted by goblins from her homeworld to morph from her dragonhide battle robes. There was something intimidating about a white bear running you down in armor plated with Celtic knots in black and bright red that gave the one wearing it a sense of visceral satisfaction.

She didn't bother shifting into human form until after the bulk of forces had descended into protracted battle and it was too confusing to figure out with colorblind eyes who was what. Her return to two-legged form was announced with a ringing laugh and the snap of a razorwhip. One whose interlocking hooks were lined with nundu blood.

That beautiful piece of personal weaponry had taken exactly 13 high-profile blackmail portfolios, 7 hits, an embezzlement charge, and two straight hours of whining to the Unspeakables running the ancient weapons armory. Nothing in the two worlds stood a chance at parting the witch from her second-favorite weapon after the first or fifth time she strangled a Death Eater bloody.

It still probably saved her life that the thing only had to nick in order for the poison to take effect against the orcs; she was a witch, not a warrior! She did her best fighting _away_ from the body odors. When she could, Kyra also tried to cast minor jinxes and curses to trip them up. Though after the first time an elf perked up and looked around suspiciously after a casting in their vicinity she decided that they really could take care of themselves and focused on helping the dwarrows and their mounted goats.

And that one, frankly disturbing war hog.

The Elven King's elk seemed to be doing well, if appropriately leery of the wargs. The fact that she recognized some muzzles and went at them more viciously than others was irrespective to saving an innocent furry creature.

Damned Hufflepuff tendencies. Not Hagrid's CoMC class, never that!

Gandalf was nearer up the ruins of Dale than most, throwing around impressive magic bolts and looking worriedly for something or someone. The bellowing of combatants and animals did nothing to hinder her sense of smell, however, kept enhanced in her two-legged form as it was, so when she caught a scent without a discernible body to accompany it, she followed.

It entered Dale, heading straight for the sounds of fighting. The witch sighed, reminded of another unprepared martyr-hero from a long time ago, then gently sent a stunner at where her nose told her it was and stowed the invisible body somewhere relatively safe and sheltered. The difficulty of _that_ task should not be overstated.

The site of battle was a somewhat clean street, filled only with small debris and semi-regular footing. There, she spotted four dwarves – one wounded, the other three fighting to protect him from the albino, one-handed orc and entourage, though the latter was being dispatched with admirable efficiency. While she still had cover, Kyra began to cast and kept constant motion until the orcs were totally befuddled and unable to notice the cautious herding and occasional stings with her poisonous whip – at least until quite a number fell over the edge of the cliff. Convenient, that was.

The albino was cannier than that, however, and he had a scarred relative looking out for him. The both of them deftly avoided her swings – how that was supposed to work despite being mostly invisible was not something she had time to delve into – as they single-mindedly went for the impressively grizzled dwarf and a pair of what looked to be younger relatives; twins, despite the disparity in coloring and features.

Gods and Spirits damn the intelligent ones, she decided, then transformed back into her armored bear-shape. Without her focus and concentration to maintain it, not to mention the surge of magic when she shifted into her animagus form, the mild Notice-Me-Not ward stitched into her robes deactivated.

The witch no longer needed it; she was busy swinging her heavy paws at armor pieces and any buckle in range, hoping to loosen or cut them enough that she wouldn't risk getting gutted if she got any closer. Being in bear form made it difficult, but not impossible to avoid sword- and mace-strikes, and Kyra kept a careful eye of her surroundings to ensure that the defenders weren't in the line of fire.

She tried her best not to settle into an attack pattern. Her heavy form might be protected from getting cut open by her armor, but getting predictable could easily leave her with a crushed skull or fatal internal bleeding. In addition, her form left her bereft of her usual versatility, sacrificed for height, strength, and reach.

With a roar, she triumphantly scored a deep gash into the Pale One's face, blinding him. The witch lunged at the other combatant, leaving those behind her to let loose a cry of their own and hack the orc to pieces.

The orc attempted to swing at her exposed neck, but by then she had shifted back, and using his imbalance, Kyra took out the kukri knife at her hip and stabbed him in the knee. Once his neck was in reach, the witch slapped her whip around it, and flipping to his back and wrapping the other end in her hand, simultaneously strangled and poisoned him.

In the distance, Beorn roared his victory.

* * *

 **|0o00o0|**

Staring at the deep slashes in her dragonhide glove, Kyra hissed and began to work it off in measured, careful strokes. The nundu blood in the gashes made this the fifth pair she'd had to discard. Luckily, Ironbelly gloves were widely available for potioneers and dragon tamers, and she had stored extras.

Maybe they could get some use out of the dragon supposedly in the lake, the witch thought, once they found a way to get the corpse out.

She sat on a log with her fellow bear-shifter outside the medical tents, having sustained relatively minor and/or easily shrugged off injuries. Beorn simply flared his nose around all the blood and death and looked impatient to be home. His neighbor pointedly met his eyes and snorted, attention returning to the glove slowly slipping out of its skintight relationship with the rest of her armor. Once it was free, she inspected her palm for even the slightest of red bruises, and finding all to her satisfaction, began to work off the other to see if the former could still be salvaged with cuttings from the hem.

For whatever reason, they were currently parked outside the royal tent, where healers of varying races scurried back and forth on their way to caring for the patients inside. Such was the constant stream of entrances and exits that the tent flap seemed in a perpetual state of flapping in either direction. The former spy was sorely tempted to spell it silent.

Gandalf the Grey was with them, as was the little creature she had Stunned on her way to the orcs. She could see a strip of blonde or grey every now and again through the entryway as they moved about.

Soon the healers began to move out more often than they came in, carrying bloodied rags and basins to be emptied. The last to go was a dwarf healer with two grey braids out of his beard curling upwards in a somewhat haphazard state. Wordlessly, he beckoned them inside as he saw himself out.

The inside wasn't particularly decorative aside from bedsheets of better quality than they could otherwise spare, but there were generous scatterings of braziers to provide warmth and the beds were a step up from the cots the other wounded were likely dealing with. Three of the dwarves she saved were surrounding the grizzled one, as was the blondie – really, she ought to remind herself to ask after his race – who looked at the witch curiously with a hint of relief.

She could well imagine the contrast: a tall, hairy, grumpy shape-shifter who closely resembled his massive black form next to a comparatively smaller, more normally proportioned young woman wearing that looked like snakeskin from head to toe. Except no snakeskin ever had scales resembling sheafs of shale laid on top of each other.

"Your Majesty," the wizard addressed the bedridden dwarf, "I hereby announce: Beorn of the Carrock and Kyra of the Blue Mountains. Miss Kyra, Mister Beorn, I hereby announce you to His Majesty King Thorin Oakenshield of Erebor." Politely, both skin-changers bowed their heads.

"I have asked you here," Thorin croaked, "to thank you for the aid you have rendered me and mine against the orcs. Without you especially, Miss Kyra, the line of Durin may have been lost; for Azog was strong and skilled."

Kyra nodded. "He was also determined to exterminate the royal family, I hear; it was my distinct pleasure to have had a hand – shall we say," she muttered to the snickering pair of twins, "in the death of such a one." Both bears had a distinctly feral sheen to their eyes remembering the carnage they caused as they dispatched of misshapen, abominable creatures. "Besides, my neighbor and I both appreciate what you've done with the Great Goblin."

The dwarven king laughed, though it subsided to hacking a short time later. "You're quite welcome," he replied dryly.

At this point, the Grey wizard moved to put the conversation back on the right track. "If the both of you can stay for at least a few more weeks, His Majesty will be acknowledging the contributions of many people during the battle. You will both be undoubtedly called upon."

Both skin-changers shrugged. They could care less about the delay if it meant they could leave immediately afterwards.

* * *

 **|0o00o0|**

In the end, Kyra pitched her tent near where the eagles roosted and was often sighted pestering the more patient individuals with questions and tentative probing about how their lives and societies worked. She was quick to make a friend, and such was the camaraderie that sprung up between them that this Great Eagle deigned to give her a long, dark feather when it was time that they left. From then on, the hedgewitch often visited the lowest levels of the Eyrie where they lived, and they would talk and while away the time together as though they had known each other for centuries. Beorn's honey would gain a new enthusiastic consumer base, and it became rare that she should ever have run out of game, she had but to take a few jars with her on her next visit.

When the announcement went out that it was time, the former spy presented herself in style: a creamy pewter robe in a cut similar to the Vietnamese ao dai, with cheerful yellow daffodils embroidered along the aprons. Her hair was placed in a tight ponytail with an elaborate celtic knot holding it in firm, and she wore no makeup nor jewelry save a pair of golden strips dangling from her earlobes.

Again, there was a noted contrast to her significantly scruffier, hide-clad neighbor as they presented themselves with a brief bow. The throne room looked pristine, angular, every gem inlay polished as if brand new. King Thorin looked particularly better than the last time she'd seen him, sitting strong and elegant on a throne with a gem insert that seemed to glow with a strange light. Looking at it made charms in her earrings burn, so she tried to ignore the shimmer.

The speech was fairly standard, a majestic pontification of thanks and rewards promised to newly declared "friends of the Dwarven nation." From the looks on visible faces around her, that was uncommon enough to be a big deal.

Gandalf was given perpetual friendship and access through the gates of Erebor so long as Thorin's blood ruled the mountain; very nice. The blondie, who was apparently a Hobbit called Bilbo Baggins, was accorded an exact fourteenth of the treasuries as well as an honor guard to see him safely home to the West. The Elven King Thranduil – though it was obviously cringe-worthy for both parties to consider interacting with each other amicably – was awarded white, almost unnaturally sparkling diamonds set into a noblewoman's elaborate necklace. Bard the Bowman, a human with age in his temples and a whip-cord body, was promised the aid of masons to settle him and the remnants of Laketown's residents in Dale, which was already undergoing rebuilding and repairs as soon as it could have been reasonably dispatched.

Kyra and Beorn were given free reign of the countryside within the aboveground territories of the dwarrow to roam as bears. Surprisingly, the hedgewitch was also given Gandalf's level of access into the mountain in either form, though it was not extended to the larger shape-shifter, likely because the king knew him enough to know the male cared nothing whatsoever for dwarves, still.

* * *

 **|0o00o0|**

Beorn elected to accompany the "Little bunny," as he called Mr. Baggins, and Gandalf on their way home near the end of autumn. By the time the caravan had set out – with much doe-eyed looks between the very unsubtle Hobbit and Dwarf King – the former spy had already gotten home on her own and quickly set out to correct the damage her gardens sustained after a month and a half's worth of neglect.

The days and evenings were very busy: from sunup to sundown, the hedgewitch was buried amongst her gardens harvesting and weeding, pruning and tending. Sundown meant that she was inside with the day's harvest, preserving them in varied ways mundane and magical for the winter ahead. Those products that tasted best fresh, like honey, were jarred and placed in a dug-out box lined with cooling charms. Everything else was canned, pickled, or smoked and Merlin-knew what else as they were kept and stuffed into the cellar or on the kitchen shelves. Now that she knew where the Lonely Mountain was, the former spy could Apparate to either the markets of Dale or Erebor for spices; perhaps Erebor, as dwarrow had a passion for hot peppers.

As their feast dishes had been more than happy to prove.

She cheerfully greeted her neighbor and his guests as they braved the steep trail to her spacious little estate, laying out a picnic cloth that was barely big enough for everyone and filling it with what fare she had that was still fresh or warm.

"You'll have to forgive me for not having anything more substantial out," Kyra commented, pointedly ignoring her dirt-streaked shirt and pants as she carefully redid her messy bun. "Unlike Beorn, I've no truck with large, intelligent animals to help with the yardwork." She also ignored the man-bear's wide-toothed grin as he dug into a pheasant-stuffed breadroll.

"Oh, no, no. It's not a problem at all," Mr. Baggins replied officiously, looking as though he was enjoying his meal. "The food is very good." The Grey wizard nodded in agreement.

Pride bloomed in the hedgewitch's chest. "Good."

Her guests spent only the one day, unfortunately, as the little Hobbit was eager to move on towards home. They did, however, make sure to promise to write each other, Kyra showing Bilbo the clockwork owl that she'd enchanted to work in the same way as its living counterpart. Then, they bid each other farewell.

It was with fondness that she went back to work.

* * *

 _ **A.N: (Pants and flops onto the bed in weariness)**_

 _ **Omigawd, you do NOT want to know exactly how long I spent writing and rewriting everything about this long-ass battle scene. Please review, especially about that part as I worked hard on it. I hope all you readers liked it.**_


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